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Martin Short
Martin Hayter Short, CM (born March 26, 1950) is a Canadian American actor, comedian, writer, singer, voice actor and producer. He is best known for his comedy work, particularly on the TV programs SCTV and Saturday Night Live. He starred in suchcomedic films as Three Amigos (1986), Innerspace (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Pure Luck (1991), Father of the Bride Part II(1995), Mars Attacks! (1996), and Jungle 2 Jungle (1997) and created the characters of Jiminy Glick and Ed Grimley. He also has appeared on stage, and won the Tony Award for the 1999 Broadway revival of Little Me. Early life Short was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the youngest of five children of Olive Grace Hayter (1913-1970), a violinist, and Charles Patrick Short (1909-1972), a corporate executive with Stelco, a Canadian steel company. He and his siblings were raised as Catholics. He had three older brothers, David (now deceased), Michael, and Brian, and one older sister, Nora. Short's father was a Catholic immigrant from Crossmaglen, South Armagh (present-day Northern Ireland), who came to North America as a stowaway during the Irish War of Independence. Short's mother served as concertmistress of the Hamilton Symphony Orchestra, and was of English and Irish descent. She encouraged Martin's early creative endeavours. His eldest brother, David, was killed in a car accident in 1962 when Short was 12. His mother died of cancer in 1970, his father two years later of complications from a stroke. Short attended Westdale Secondary School and graduated from McMaster University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Work in 1971. Career Early career When Short graduated from McMaster University, he intended to pursue a career in social work; however, he became interested in acting once he was cast in a Torontoproduction of Godspell that same year. Among other members of that production's cast were Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and Andrea Martin;Paul Shaffer was the musical director. He was subsequently cast in several television shows and plays, including the drama Fortune and Men's Eyes (1972). He worked solely in Canada through 1979. In 1979, Short starred in the U.S. sitcom The Associates about a group of young novice lawyers working at a Wall Street law firm. In 1980, he joined the cast of I'm a Big Girl Now, a sitcom starring Diana Canova and Danny Thomas. Canova was offered the sitcom because of her success playing Corinne Tate Flotsky on ABC's Soap and left Soap shortly before Short's newlywed wife Nancy Dolman joined it. SCTV Short was encouraged to pursue comedy by McMaster classmates Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas, whom he joined in the improvisation group The Second City in Edmonton, Alberta in 1977. Short came to public notice when the group produced a show for television, Second City Television or SCTV, which ran for several years in Canada, then the United States. Short appeared on SCTV in 1982–1983. At SCTV Short developed several characters before moving on to Saturday Night Live for the 1984–1985 season: * Talk show host Brock Linehan, based on the Canadian interviewer Brian Linehan * Aged songwriter Irving Cohen, loosely based on American composer Irving Caesar * Entertainer Jackie Rogers, Jr. * Current-events commentator Troy Soren * Industrialist and art patron Bradley P. Allen * Defense attorney Nathan Thurm * Oddball man-child Ed Grimley, later featured on SNL and in his own television cartoon series in 1989 titled The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, which, despite its short run, is considered the only Saturday morning cartoon adapted from an SCTV character and a Saturday Night Live character.